|
Sudan
POPULATION
Population information for Sudan has been limited, but in 1990
it was clear that the country was experiencing a high birth rate
and a high, but declining, death rate. Infant mortality was high,
but Sudan was expected to continue its rapid population growth,
with a large percentage of its people under fifteen years of age,
for some time to come. The trends indicated an overall low population
density. However, with famine affecting much of the country, internal
migration by hundreds of thousands of people was on the increase.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that
in early 1991, approximately 1,800,000 people were displaced in
the northern states, of whom it was estimated that 750,000 were
in Al Khartum State, 30,000 each in Kurdufan and Al Awsat states,
300,000 each in Darfur and Ash Sharqi states, and 150,000 in Ash
Shamali State. Efforts were underway to provide permanent sites
for about 800,000 of these displaced people. The civil war and
famine in the south was estimated to have displaced up to 3.5
million southern Sudanese by early 1990.
In addition to uncertainties concerning the number of refugees,
population estimates were complicated by census difficulties.
Since independence there have been three national censuses, in
1955-56, 1973, and 1983. The first was inadequately prepared and
executed. The second was not officially recognized by the government,
and thus its complete findings have never been released. The third
census was of better quality, but some of the data has never been
analyzed because of inadequate resources.
The 1983 census put the total population at 21.6 million with
a growth rate between 1956 and 1983 of 2.8 percent per year (see
table 2, Appendix). In 1990, the National Population Committee
and the Department of Statistics put Sudan's birthrate at 50 births
per 1,000 and the death rate at 19 per 1,000, for a rate of increase
of 31 per 1,000 or 3.1 percent per year. This is a staggering
increase; compared with the world average of 1.8 percent per year
and the average for developing countries of 2.1 percent per annum,
this percentage made Sudan one of the world's fastest growing
countries. The 1983 population estimate was thought to be too
low, but even accepting it and the pre-1983 growth rate of 2.8
percent, Sudan's population in 1990 would have been well over
25 million. At the estimated 1990 growth rate of 3.1 percent,
the population would double in twenty-two years. Even if the lower
estimated rate were sustained, the population would reach 38.6
million in 2003 and 50.9 million by 2013.
Both within Sudan and among the international community, it was
commonly thought that with an average population density of nine
persons per square kilometer, population density was not a major
problem. This assumption, however, failed to take into account
that much of Sudan was uninhabitable and its people were unevenly
distributed, with about 33 percent of the nation's population
occupying 7 percent of the land and concentrated around Khartoum
and in Al Awsat. In fact, 66 percent of the population lived within
300 kilometers of Khartoum (see table 3, Appendix). In 1990 the
population of the Three Towns (Khartoum, Omdurman, and Khartoum
North) was unknown because of the constant influx of refugees,
but estimates of 3 million, well over half the urban dwellers
in Sudan, may not have been unrealistic. Nevertheless, only 20
percent of Sudanese lived in towns and cities; 80 percent still
lived in rural areas.
The birthrate between the 1973 census and the 1987 National Population
Conference appeared to have remained constant at from 48 to 50
births per 1,000 population. The fertility rate (the average number
of children per woman) was estimated at 6.9 in 1983. Knowledge
of family planning remained minimal. During the period, the annual
death rate fell from 23 to 19 per 1,000, and the estimated life
expectancy rose from 43.5 years to 47 years.
For more than a decade the gross domestic product ( GDP--see
Glossary) of Sudan had not kept pace with the increasing population,
a trend indicating that Sudan would have difficulty in providing
adequate services for its people. Moreover, half the population
were under eighteen years of age and therefore were primarily
consumers not producers. Internal migration caused by civil war
and famine created major shifts in population distribution, producing
overpopulation in areas that could provide neither services nor
employment. Furthermore, Sudan has suffered a continuous "brain
drain" as its finest professionals and most skilled laborers emigrated,
while simultaneously there has been an influx of more than 1 million
refugees, who not only lacked skills but required massive relief.
Droughts in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s have undermined Sudan's
food production, and the country would have to double its production
to feed its expected population within the next generation. In
the absence of a national population policy to deal with these
problems, they were expected to worsen.
Moreover, throughout Sudan continuous environmental degradation
accompanied the dearth of rainfall. Experts estimated that desertification
caused by deforestation and drought had allowed the Sahara to
advance southward at the rate of ten kilometers per year. About
7.8 million Sudanese were estimated to be at risk from famine
in early 1991, according to the United Nations World Food Program
and other agencies. The Save the Children Fund estimated that
the famine in Darfur would cost the lives of "tens of thousands"
of people in the early 1990s. Analysts believed that the lack
of rainfall combined with the ravages of war would result in massive
numbers of deaths from starvation in the 1990s.
Data as of June 1991
|
